Professor of Economics Glenn Loury participated in a Congressional briefing on The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences, a recent report released by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Watch webcast.

At Brown’s 247th Commencement, which takes place Sunday, May 24, Brown’s Economics Department will by marking the awarding of degrees to what is coincidentally the same number of undergraduate concentrators in Economics and its joint concentrations with Applied Mathematics, Mathematics, and Computer Science. 185 will earn the AB in Economics, 46 will earn AB or BSc in Applied Math – Economics, 10 in Computer Science – Economics and 6 in Mathematics – Economics, for a grand total of exactly 247!

Six students who defended their Ph.D. dissertations in recent months will receive their Ph.D.’s from Brown at this year’s commencement, while a record number of students have accepted offers to enter the Economics graduate program in September 2015. Graduating students are launching their careers with positions at U.S. and foreign universities and in government and industry.

One can almost hear a whole generation of Brown Economics Ph.D. students cheering as the announcement is made that Angelica Vargas, the long-time Academic Programs Manager and unofficial den mother of every incoming graduate class in the program for almost fifteen years, was selected by the Graduate Student Council (representing Brown’s graduate student population across all departments) to receive this year’s Wilson-DeBlois Award.